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Algorithmic Monocultures in Hiring

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Re: Algorithmic Monocultures in Hiring

#91

Post by blharr »

gacgacgac wrote: post #37
dash2 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. I read the article: > Since the 80% test does not involve probability distributions to determine whether the disparity is a “beyond chance” occurrence, it is usually not regarded as a definitive test for adverse impact. Instead, other statistically significance tests, such as the standard deviation analysis, may be used for this purpose. But then my question recurs: isn’t this a ridiculous way to measure disc…

It's not used to measure discrimination. It's used to identify outcomes that appear to be potentially discriminatory. You have to do the legwork afterwards. Like. If I am evaluating a developer on lines of code written, I am a bad manager. But if an engineer has 40% fewer lines of code than the team median, it's absolutely ok for me to go, "Interesting. What's the story there? Are they slower or is there some other f…

You are correct, but especially in current day that analogy is quite bad.

I expect Median LoC might be very high with the average developer using AI these days... but the dev who is making atomic changes that are fixing the AI output is probably tiny LoC but way more important

Re: Algorithmic Monocultures in Hiring

#92

Post by paisawalla »

59percentmore wrote: post #82
paisawalla wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an application of the disparate impact doctrine. Even facially neutral policies are considered suspect if they produce results that correlate against protected groups, irrespective of intent. This doctrine is the basis for much of employment law. It is a significant reason why employers don't administer IQ tests (or equivalents) to screen candidates since ~the 90s. A common objection to the doctrine is that i…

And a common rebuttal to the objection is that systemic racism is often difficult to untangle in a way that produces a neat chain of cause and effect (not least of which because discrimination can happen unconsciously or secretly); because the impact exists whether intent can be shown or not, the desire remains to ameliorate that impact. If the issue happens upstream of the defendant to a claim - generally an organiz…

What evidence would disprove the claim that systemic racism is the cause of a persistent disparity?

Re: Algorithmic Monocultures in Hiring

#93

Post by rnxrx »

Genuine curiosity: Is there any speculation as to what these tools are keying on to reject those particular applicants? It seems like it just being the applicant's name is too easy an answer, but I could be overthinking it.

Re: Algorithmic Monocultures in Hiring

#94

Post by Manuel_D »

gacgacgac wrote: post #33
paisawalla wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an application of the disparate impact doctrine. Even facially neutral policies are considered suspect if they produce results that correlate against protected groups, irrespective of intent. This doctrine is the basis for much of employment law. It is a significant reason why employers don't administer IQ tests (or equivalents) to screen candidates since ~the 90s. A common objection to the doctrine is that i…

Importantly, the rule is not used to resolve racial discrimination claims. It's purely meant as the first test to evaluate whether a deeper dive is warranted. Fast, first pass data analysis tools are very useful for spotting unintended consequences.

To the contrary, companies have been found liable for discrimination solely based on having the wrong percentages outcomes in its objective hiring assessments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.

Re: Algorithmic Monocultures in Hiring

#95

Post by kbelder »

jmyeet wrote: post #63

Many people seem to think racism begins and ends with using a slur. You can usually get a measure of this by seeing someone's reaction to the statement: > There is no such thing as anti-white racism. If you find yourself wanting to disagree with that then, I'm sorry but you simply don't know what racism is. Racism is pervasive, insidious and systemic. A good example in the hiring space is what's called the "second sy…

> > There is no such thing as anti-white racism.

> If you find yourself wanting to disagree with that then, I'm sorry but you simply don't know what racism is.

You are saying that if you think anti-white racism can exist, you don't know what racism is. That's obviously ludicrous.

Re: Algorithmic Monocultures in Hiring

#97

Post by aenis »

logicchains wrote: post #28
dash2 wrote: post #17

> To measure adverse impact, we apply the EEOC’s “four-fifths rule,” which flags a position when one group is recommended at less than 80% of the rate of the most-recommended group That seems like a nonsensical way to measure racial discrimination. What could justify it?

>What could justify it? The assumption that applicants from all races are on average equally qualified for every position. Whole subfields of modern academia are based on that assumption.

I am wondering - if in those circles, questions such as 'is NBA intentionally discriminating against asians - or is the fact that long distance running is dominated by, say, Ethiopians an example of discrimination' are ever discussed - or declared taboo and racist? I don't doubt that the assumption is just plain, demonstrably wrong - we all evolved under different types of environmental pressures - I am just wondering if the proponents of the all-the-races-are-same-on-average are ever discussing those obvious facts, and what answers do they come up with to explain the, say, unfair underrepresentation of Japanese in the NBA.

Re: Algorithmic Monocultures in Hiring

#99

Post by [deleted] »

gacgacgac wrote: post #41
wand3r wrote: post #24

Did I miss the part of the article where they break down how they determined race? Is the algorithm blind to race? It looks like they specifically looked at 83k people applying to ~100 companies which notably were Fortune 500 companies. Could there simply be candidate discrepancies here? Hard for me to follow the full methodology but it doesn't necessarily seem either malicious or that well structured. Don't you need…

Yes. You missed it. They are using a test dataset of 83k resumes generated in 2022 for this paper and comparing it as a baseline against their observational data: https://www.nber.org/papers/w29053 The dataset is constructed, deliberately, to hold candidate performance constant and vary the names of candidates to appear to be associated with a specific race.

[deleted]

Re: Algorithmic Monocultures in Hiring

#100

Post by rayiner »

wand3r wrote: post #24

Did I miss the part of the article where they break down how they determined race? Is the algorithm blind to race? It looks like they specifically looked at 83k people applying to ~100 companies which notably were Fortune 500 companies. Could there simply be candidate discrepancies here? Hard for me to follow the full methodology but it doesn't necessarily seem either malicious or that well structured. Don't you need…

That’s not the data set used for this paper: https://algorithmichiring.github.io/

If you click through, the paper says the race is self-reported.

“Our data tracks 4,197,168 applications. It includes applicant gameplay features and for each application, the application date, the position name and employer, metadata about the position and employer, and the numerical score and final recommendation each applicant received for each completed application. 40.2% of applicants self-report race with a breakdown of 16.8% Asian, 14.2% White, 3.6% Black, 3.0% Hispanic, and all other racial categories below 2% (i.e. fewer than 100,000 applicants).”

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